


If You Could Only See the Beast You Made of Me

by stardustedknuckles



Category: Critical Role (Web Series)
Genre: Alternate Universe - Modern Setting, Alternate Universe - Werewolf, F/F, Implied/Referenced Abuse, Mentions of other characters - Freeform, October Prompt Challenge, Werewolf!yasha, but with magic, like magic college?, unimportant - Freeform
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2020-10-16
Updated: 2020-10-16
Packaged: 2021-03-08 17:14:17
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,385
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/27050269
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/stardustedknuckles/pseuds/stardustedknuckles
Summary: An excerpt from the multi-chapter werewolf AU that may or may not ever get written, posted here for promptober. Consider it the fic equivalent of a piece of concept art.Day 16: Enchanted/Transformation
Relationships: Beauregard Lionett/Yasha
Comments: 12
Kudos: 103





	If You Could Only See the Beast You Made of Me

**Author's Note:**

> I'll get back to 'regular' prompts soonish? I'm having fun. There's a whole AU for this in my head, but damn if it won't take me a million years to write. It's even got like, plot. Gross. Here, have a piece. Don't think too hard about what context you're missing - this is in the last third or quarter of the whole sprawling AU that took up residence in my head yesterday after bouncing it with a friend.
> 
> I would've listed it as a series but it would be more accurate to say that it's a preview of something much larger. So for now, it stands alone.

The wolf was quiet, but Beau had been waiting for hours for any sign of movement. She emerged slowly from the tree line, sniffing the air, and Beau waited with her heart feeling it was going to burst from her chest. The porch light was on, and she was cross-legged beside the plate of raw meat. She wasn't hiding. She was here to help.

She had expected the wolf to be injured, but her heart still squeezed to see the way it moved as it dragged itself through the brush to the edge of the yard, just past where the light could reach. She remembered the last time she'd seen Yasha, those three days ago. She'd looked like hell. Dark circles under eyes, a split lip, a bruise on her collarbone and many more under her clothes if Beau had to guess. It was also the first time Beau had seen her without her black leather collar. She looked so much younger somehow in its absence.

Her cuts and bruises, however, looked like nothing in comparison to the pain in Yasha's mismatched eyes as she said goodbye, that it was best if Beau didn't know her, that she and her family would be in danger - might be already.

Beau wasn't an idiot. She knew what it looked like to be a dick to someone you're protecting so they won't go looking for you. She had almost fallen for it too, hadn't understood the weight of Yasha's warning until TJ had gone missing. The worst eight hours of her life, and then Fjord's voice on her phone. "We've got him. He's safe, but...he says a big white dog rescued him and ran away."

The wolf was limping, her head low to the ground as she finally emerged fully into the clearing and made her way to the porch. Beau held her breath to keep from gasping as the very edge of the porch light illuminated what she had already guessed.

The wolf's front left paw looked _wrong._ The white fur was dirty and matted, and it was clear bones were broken by the way it dangled and wouldn't take weight. It struck Beau that there should be more blood to match an injury that bad, that it almost looked worse without it.

There was plenty of blood, however, on the wolf's lips and teeth. Fjord's voice, unknowingly giving Beau the final clue: _There was a casualty. A guy who ran an underground dogfighting ring. His was a prizewinner - a white one he called Orphanmaker._

Beau's fingers clenched in her lap as the wolf's head lifted slightly and two different colored eyes found hers. Brown, yes, but one red like mud and the other a clear, bright amber.

Gods. She'd been right.

A low growl started from deep inside the wolf's chest, but it quickly became a whine. Something caught the light as she winced, and Beau glanced down to see the broken end of a choke chain dangling at the wolf's chest. It was, in places, as red as the blood mask on the wolf's face.

Beau swallowed, gathered her courage. "It's okay," she whispered. "I know you helped TJ." The wolf looked from her to the food beside her and gave another aborted growl. As slowly as she could, Beau leaned over and slid the plate towards the wolf with steady fingers. The wolf growled a little harder, this one rumbling a little stronger.

Beau leaned back just as slowly and put her hands up. She fumbled in her mind for the words Caleb had given her, the ones that she'd spent hours practicing in front of her mirror and feeling like an idiot.

The wolf bent to sniff at the meat, and then she looked back up to Beau. She didn't move, didn't even breathe. She limped closer, until she could bump the food with her nose, and then with a careful, almost delicate motion, she lifted the top piece with her bloody teeth and swallowed it almost whole. Something like a cough came from the area of the ribs Beau could just see through her fur, but she bent again and began making short work of the rest.

If history served, Beau had only had seconds before the wolf would turn and disappear back into the woods. She took a deep breath and spoke in a slippery and unfamiliar language. "I am your friend."

Celestial, Caleb explained, was a language sung as much as spoken. It had its own properties, but the long and the short of what Beau understood was that the pronunciation had a life of its own when done correctly. When Caleb spoke it, it was like listening to wind chimes that occasionally broke into a guttural Zemnian accent, made harsher by the contrast.

"When you are speaking correctly," Caleb had told her, "the words take on their own magic. If you do it incorrectly, you will just be singing random words in your own tongue."

Most of what came from Beau's mouth was just her own voice making arcane noise, but there were glimmers of sound among them.

The wolf's ears pulled back slowly, her great head tilting ever so slightly. Beau tried again, stronger this time. "I am your friend." More chimes, a a kind of auditory pearlescence - like a strand of fine, iridescent silk woven in a hemp rope. The wolf whined again, softly. Beau moved one of her lifted hands just enough to get the wolf's attention, and slowly reached out.

"I am your friend," she sang, and there were fewer breaks. "I am your friend." The wolf shrank away from her but made no move to get up. She seemed to be pressing herself into the ground as hard as she could, her mud-streaked tail curled tight around her bloody back paw.

Beau rocked her weight forward slowly, agonizingly slowly repeating "I am your friend" with varying degrees of accuracy as she shuffled forward until finally, her hand came to rest on a cold black nose the size of her palm. The wolf flinched away, and it took every ounce of Beau's self control to keep from yelping and flinching herself. Almost immediately, warm breath snuffled against her hand and a trembling muzzle pressed back up against her palm.

"I've got you," Beau whispered. The wolf's head flattened against the ground, and now she could see clearly the wide stripe of black leather tucked among the white fur, pressed right up against the dirty silver of the choke chain.

Caleb's voice, an old tome from one of his shelves cracked open across his palm: "A shifter can be forced into a state of transformation through the use of magic. Spells may be used, but other examples include enchanted items or potions used to induce the desired state."

"I am your friend," she repeated again in Celestial, and she put a hand on the buckle of the leather collar.

The wolf jerked and her teeth clacked together helplessly with a whine, rolling over almost sideways in its attempt to bite air and not Beau. Beau had been prepared for this, held on and brought her other hand around to fumble with the catch, pulled, and…

Beau panted on her hands and knees, blinking hard as the glow of the transformation faded until finally, she could see again well enough to make out the very bruised and very naked woman lying exhausted on the ground. She was covered in dirt and cut all over, noticeably thinner even over the three days since Beau had seen her last, but it was undeniably her.

"Yasha," Beau whispered.

Her eyes fluttered open, familiar green and violet, and Beau felt relief course through her in the instant before she noticed something wrong. Yasha's eyes were wild and unfocused, and…something else, like there was still some of the wolf clinging to her.

Beau frowned and peered more closely. "Yasha?" Her eyes found Beau's and she gave a soft whine. "Shit," Beau said softly. She pressed a soft hand to Yasha's shoulder, and Yasha pressed closer immediately with a small grunt. "It's gonna be okay," Beau said. "Whatever he did, we're going to fix it." She squeezed Yasha's shoulder gently, took a deep breath, and turned back to the house.

"Jester!" 

**Author's Note:**

> Title from "Howl" by Florence and the Machine. Don't @ me, it's spooky month. I get to be cliche.


End file.
